


Waltzing the Shadows

by celli



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: 12 Days of Malex 2019, Angst, Christmas, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Malex Secret Santa 2019, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-01-26 00:50:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21365449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/pseuds/celli
Summary: December 2012: Alex comes back to Roswell for leave and encounters Michael.The mural in this room was especially kitschy, Alex thought; the spaceships were in the process of landing, with a little green man standing next to the one farthest to the right and talking to a little human soldier. Michael took one look at the wall and choked out a laugh.“Don’t insult my aliens,” Alex told him. “I like my aliens.”
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 32
Kudos: 164
Collections: 12 Days Of Malex 2019





	Waltzing the Shadows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aewriting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aewriting/gifts).

> Much love to nestra for beta work and misspamela for audiencing!
> 
> Title from the Lowen & Navarro song of the same name.

_December 22, 2012_

Alex settled into a booth at the Pony, taking his beer from Maria gratefully. “Now I’m really home,” he said, tipping the bottle in her direction.

“Any time,” she said, and ruffled his hair, as much as the Air Force-standard cut would allow. “Do you need a place to stay tonight, babe? Mimi and I would love to have you.”

“I’m good. I got a place at that tourist trap by the I-285 on-ramp.”

She burst out laughing. “The one with the alien invasion murals in every room? What were you thinking?”

“It’s kind of fun, it’s like sleeping in the UFO Emporium.” And it had the added benefit of being the kind of place where he’d never run into anyone who also knew his father.

They didn’t discuss why home wasn’t an option for this Christmas leave. They didn’t need to. Alex might be stuck taking leave, and he might have promised his mother he’d come back and make nice with his brothers for the holiday, but nothing short of gunpoint was going to get him under his childhood roof. And if some mysterious computer snafu had stranded his father at the Pentagon for this precise week...well, that was just too bad, now, wasn’t it?

Something over at the bar attracted Maria’s attention, and she rolled her eyes. “Shut up, Hank!” she yelled. “I’ll be there in a second.”

“Go. Work. I’m here for a week,” Alex said. “You and Mimi and I will have plenty of time to catch up.”

She patted his shoulder and headed off to give Hank a beer - and probably a piece of her mind with it, if Alex knew Maria. He grinned.

“Alex,” someone said, shocked, behind him. Alex jerked at the sound of it, turning in a hurry and nearly spilling his beer.

“Guerin.” _Michael._

Michael wore jeans faded almost to white at the stress points and boots that were clearly for hard work, not affectation. His black and white plaid shirt highlighted his tan. The curls Alex hadn’t been able to make himself forget in four years came into view as he pulled off his black cowboy hat and twisted it in his hands. Whether that hid his left hand accidentally or on purpose, Alex couldn’t tell.

But more than just Michael’s clothes had changed. He had--had hardened, Alex thought, not that he had any room to throw stones there after this deployment. The boy who had played a guitar to balance his entropy, who had thrown caution to the wind and kissed him, who had rolled around on a bed with him - there was no sign of him, but Alex definitely saw more than a trace of the sullen young man sleeping in his truck who hadn’t trusted anyone to do anything for him.

Not that Alex could blame him, really.

“What are you doing back here?” Michael asked, just a beat too late for it to be casual. “Your enlistment’s not up for--”

“No,” Alex said. “Uh, no. I got leave for Christmas.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “You _asked_ for family leave?”

Alex shifted under Michael’s stare. “Not exactly. What about you? Shouldn’t you be halfway to a Ph.D. by now?”

Michael snorted. “Not exactly.”

They exchanged a long look that sent a jolt straight down Alex’s spine. He opened his mouth, to say what he wasn’t sure, but Maria’s presence snapped it shut. She walked past them and into a conversation with a patron, side-eyeing Michael the entire time.

“Somehow I’m not thirsty,” Michael said, shifting his gaze to Maria and back to Alex.

Alex lifted an eyebrow. “Really?”

Michael gave him another searing look.

Nobody was going to call Alex stupid. These days. “Yeah, well,” he said, “after this, I might just take a bottle of something back to the Days of ‘47 Inn. Spend some time communing with the spaceships on my wall.”

Michael’s face did something Alex couldn’t quite read, then settled into his usual mocking grin. “Have fun in outer space, Private.”

He slid his hat back on and sauntered out. Alex pretended not to watch him leave and hoped he’d been right.

* * *

Alex pulled to a stop in front of his room at the motel; a familiar truck was parked at the end of the lot. He got out, reached for the half-full bottle of Jack that Maria had pressed on him when he’d left, and waited for Michael to join him by the door.

“Come here often, sailor?” Michael asked, tipping his hat in Alex’s direction.

Alex couldn’t think of an answer, or rather, he could think of too many answers that would just hurt one of them and drive Michael away. Instead, he reached out and pulled Michael in to him, into a kiss flavored with alcohol and the past.

It was not a pleasant thought, exactly, that Michael had gotten a lot better at this in the last four years. Even without Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Alex hadn’t really had the nerve for more than a couple of one-night stands since he’d left Roswell. He felt young and stupid, but Michael groaned into his mouth and grabbed Alex’s ass to pull him in closer.

“Get in here,” Alex said roughly and groped for his room key.

“Yeah, God forbid anyone see us,” Michael said, pulling back.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, do you want to talk about this town’s homophobia, or do you want to fuck me?”

“No, yeah,” Michael said. He took the bottle from Alex’s hand and followed him in.

The mural in this room was especially kitschy, Alex thought; the spaceships were in the process of landing, with a little green man standing next to the one farthest to the right and talking to a little human soldier. Michael took one look at the wall and choked out a laugh.

“Don’t insult my aliens,” Alex told him. “I like my aliens.”

Michael had already cracked into the Jack, Jesus. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, lowering the bottle from his lips. Alex stared at his mouth until Michael stepped forward and kissed him again.

Alex put one hand in Michael’s belt loop and the other on the bottle. He took a sip from it, aware of Michael’s knuckles brushing his lips, then took the bottle away and set it down on the side table by the window. Michael kissed him again, wet and messy. Alex worked on Michael’s belt as Michael tugged up the hem of Alex’s Henley and sweatshirt. Their hands tangled. Where their 17-year-old selves would have laughed, their 22-year-old selves just swore and dragged harder at fabric and leather.

Finally the belt and shirts hit the floor, and Alex knocked Michael’s hat off for good measure on his way to get his hands in Michael’s hair and press up against him. Michael’s hands were everywhere - tight against Alex’s back, squeezing his cock through his jeans until Alex moaned around Michael’s tongue, then back up to attack his own shirt buttons. He got a few undone and dislodged Alex enough to get the shirt over his head. Alex rubbed back up against him. Michael gasped and scratched the nails of his right hand up Alex’s back. His hand stuttered and stopped at a scar along the top of Alex’s shoulder blade--

Alex pushed Michael down onto the bed and crawled on top of him. He bit along the top of Michael’s arms, his pecs, at his nipples. 

“You’re different,” Michael gasped into the night air.

“Not hardly, look at you, Guerin,” Alex said against Michael’s stomach. He reached for Michael’s button-fly.

“Not different like - oh, God, Alex - oh fuck, if you keep doing that, I am _not_ going to last long enough to fuck you, just so you know.”

Alex grinned, but pulled his hand out of Michael’s pants and pulled them down his legs instead. Michael grabbed them on the way down and pulled a condom and a small tube of lube out of the back pocket. 

“Please tell me you don’t still live out of your truck,” Alex said.

“No, but I still keep all the important things in it,” Michael said. Somehow, Alex didn’t think he was kidding. “Are we going to talk about my living arrangements or are you going to get naked?”

Alex got them both out of their footwear and jeans and crawled back up over Michael to kiss him. Michael flipped them with an easy spin that made Alex a little lightheaded.

The feeling only increased when Michael got one long finger, then two into him. Alex grabbed onto Michael’s shoulders and bit the crap out of his lip to keep from saying something ridiculous. _I’ve missed this for four years. I think about you all the time. Michael._ “Fuck me, Guerin.”

“Getting there,” Michael said through gritted teeth, getting Alex’s right leg over his shoulder. He eased his cock into him and Alex hissed out through his teeth, digging his fingers into Michael’s arms. Michael leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. 

“Alex,” he whispered.

Alex could keep himself from talking, but he was very afraid the shaking hand he put on Michael’s cheek said it all for him.

He could have sworn he saw a glow out of the corner of his eye for a second when Michael came, but he was too busy coming himself to really register it.

* * *

Alex forced himself to let go as Michael rolled away. He stared at the ceiling, which had a bunch of glow-in-the-dark stars glued to it. They were in the process of falling off mostly. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Michael, unselfconsciously naked, walk to the table and take a swig of the Jack. Alex closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see Michael pull his clothes on and leave.

He was taken by surprise, then, when Michael crawled back into bed with him and pulled the covers up over them.

“Guerin?” he asked blankly, his eyes popping open.

“Can we not?” Michael asked.

“Not…?”

Michael reached out one long arm and traced the shape of a spaceship on the wall mural. “Not yell at each other, not throw the past around, not stomp out the door. Just...not.”

Alex linked his hand with Michael’s and pulled them in to his chest. “It’s not like the outside world is going away.”

“Just for a while.” Michael’s voice was barely audible. “Just for now.”

“All right,” Alex whispered. 

Michael buried his face in Alex’s shoulder. Alex closed his eyes again and breathed Michael in and let himself, just for a while, believe in a time when he wasn’t at war. When his father didn’t haunt every move he made. When he and Michael could be themselves, whoever those selves really were.

Michael flattened his hand over Alex’s heart. Alex sank deeper into Michael’s warmth. For now he’d let himself believe.


End file.
